Monday, July 18, 2016

Meanwhile On Planet Zorlthrax X9 (Camp NaNo Update for July 18)

So far this month:

Opportunity of a Lifetime  7/3, 917 words
Eclipsed In Time  7/3, 822 words
Status Report  7/4, 1,424 words
Chaos and Order  7/5, 1,913 words
Above the Law   7/6, 1,160 words
Muse  7/7  1,017 words
Shadow Secrets  7/10  2,347 words
Prison World  7/11  1,091 words
Short Circuit  7/12  959 words
Meanwhile In Frosthaven  7/13  1,068 words
The Wight Stuff  7/14 1,647 words
Meanwhile On Planet Zorlthrax X9  7/18  1,176 words
Ripperology  7/18  1,304 words

I wrote nothing much Friday through Sunday, but I wrote two brand new stories on Monday and I may not be done yet.

The Wight Stuff:  Sadly this story revolves around a bad pun.  I did a lot of research into things before I wrote it, and consequently I liked most of the idea behind the story, but when it came to the ending the pun was all I really had.  I'm not sure how well it works, but it involves the Brontë sisters, their shared universes, and a few related things.  It involves paracosmoses and the city of Intersect, which is my version of Cynosure -- a city at the crossroads of dimensions.

Meanwhile On Planet Zorlthrax X9 is a story idea that I had Sunday morning but I wasn't sure there was an actual story to the idea.  But Monday morning I figured out the way to tell it that gave it a kind of kick at the end, which is really all most of my stories have.  What I like most about this one is that it's kind of a companion piece to Meanwhile in Frosthaven and Meanwhile in Intersect.  The first deals with what Sam Solo and Two-Fisted Timmy are up to while the rest of the League of Former Sidekicks is hunting down Grandpa Anarchy, the second is intended to deal with what Grandpa and the two future sidekicks that are with him are doing in Intersect.  Zorlthrax X9 kind of covers what the rest of Grandpa's companions are up to, although you don't really learn that much.  The whole idea tickles me, and now I'm also wondering if / when I write a story about how Geothermal Jenny and company are handling their search for Grandpa and company, I should give that one a Meanwhile title as well.  But Zorlthrax X9 absolutely has to be the final one in the sequence.

Ripperology  I've been struggling to turn Meanwhile in Intersect into a story with a plot, and I also had decided to write at least one Circuit Girl story.  I created a story with the preliminary title Jack, in which the plan was for John Haggard (Happy Jack) to appear through the gate in Grandpa's Anarchy Cave, at a time when Circuit Girl was Grandpa's sidekick.  But that by itself wasn't a story, and I began to explore the idea that Haggard was on the trail of Jack the Ripper -- or maybe Jack the Ripper appeared in Meanwhile In Intersect, jumping from Intersect to earth via the gateway in Haggard's bar and the one in Grandpa's cave.  But those weren't fully formed ideas either.  I had an idea that Jack the Ripper skipping through time was something that happened a lot to Grandpa, but when I started reading up on the Whitechappel murders and on all of the tropes surrounding the Jack the Ripper myth, I came up with a very different story that didn't involve anyone travelling to/from Intersect at all.  Instead, it involves people travelling back in time to try and find out who Jack the Ripper really was -- and this is the thing that Grandpa Anarchy has seen over and over again.  And as I'd planned to do, I made this a story that happens while Circuit Girl is Grandpa's sidekick.  She doesn't get to do all that much, but it's more than she's ever been allowed to do on-screen before now.  Mission accomplished, I say!

I'm pretty proud of what I came up with for this one.  Because of how I structured the story, you don't get to actually see Grandpa or Circuit Girl in London, 1888, which would have been a lot of fun to write, but it would not have set up my punchline well.  I think I came up with a nice twist ending for this one.  ^_^

Now my only question is whether I really still need a story involving Circuit Girl and John Haggard, and what can I possibly make out of Meanwhile In Intersect...

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